


Dimensions (of which there are eleven)

by Miriam_Heddy



Category: Numb3rs
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:57:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4655139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miriam_Heddy/pseuds/Miriam_Heddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1. There came a point after which ignoring the attraction was simply impossible. And he'd tried—he certainly had at that. He considered it a sign of personal weakness, then, that he could no longer look at Charles at all without thinking about the line of his body entirely unencumbered by clothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dimensions (of which there are eleven)

**Author's Note:**

> _Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> _—Albert Einstein._

1\. There came a point after which ignoring the attraction was simply impossible. And he'd tried—he certainly had at that. He considered it a sign of personal weakness, then, that he could no longer look at Charles at all without thinking about the line of his body entirely unencumbered by clothing.

2\. He was a small man, in more ways than just height, there really was no doubt at all about that. It took him three tries and at least as many drinks before he could read Amita's first forays into the field of physics without looking for errors where there were none, and missing the rather obvious ones that she'd actually made. 

3\. The solid length of his own penis fit easily into his own hand, and he engaged himself with only a little pleasure, distracted, as he was recently, with the thought that he really did need to get out more, meet new people, perhaps learn to socialize outside his own world with its narrow confines and unbearably intense young mathematicians with no sense of personal space.

4\. The distance between them could be measured, he supposed, in centimeters or, more precisely, in smaller increments, still, as Charles had a habit of standing a bit close when they were talking. But it could also be measured in years—decades, even—and that was… troubling.

5.         "Need leads the lines of love in circles and angles."  
         "What?" Charles was staring at him and he realized he must have said it aloud.  
         "Nothing. Just an old song."  
         "Riiight." 

6\. He knew that Charles had said something important—he was sure of that, though he was afraid he'd really lost track of the precise nature of the problem sometime in the last few minutes. Charles had a pleasant voice, very commanding. He nodded and offered a vague enough answer that he assumed touched on _something_ , as really, all things were connected, weren't they? The fun came in seeing what Charles did next. He really did have a remarkably intuitive mind.

7\. "Right, right, I should have—that's—thanks. _Yes_." And Charles turned back to the blackboard. Larry watched the chalk outlining Charles' thoughts, line by line, following along, for the most part, but still distracted by the curve of Charles' fingers curling around the rigid length of chalk.

8\. Sometimes, Larry thought that his work was nothing more than a spider's web, ephemeral, transparent, and strong under only very specific conditions. Sometimes, he thought that his desire for Charles was much like his work—entirely theoretical, useful only for what it explained, and unfortunately for him, entirely un-testable at the present time.

9\. In 1596, the poet Sir John Davies wrote, "Forward and backward rapt and whirled are/According to the music of the spheres." Some 409 years later, he imagined that, in some sense, physics had never really left the sixteenth century. The tensile strength of the metaphor fascinated him, as did the idea that the M might stand for Mother and not, as he sometimes preferred, Mystery or Magic. Were he and Charles both in search of a lost Mother? Freud had seen a child throw a toy behind the sofa and reel it in again and called it a "great cultural achievement" as the boy "staged" the disappearance and return of the objects within his reach, a means to adjust to loss by reminding himself of its impermanence. But Charles' mother had indeed died. And Larry himself sometimes felt connected to Charles as if by a string, or by Susskind's rubber band—the desire vibrating between them almost enough to compensate for the renunciation of the act of leaving Charles for a time. It was that thought, and not the security of tenure, that held him in place when he otherwise might flee.

10\. It was as though something inside him was unfurling, something that had been compressed and closed and tightly bound, and he gasped with delight, almost afraid to move, as Charles put some space between them, frowning slightly, and Larry braced himself for the disappointment of what Charles might say next, though he was not quite able to accept it, but then Charles leaned in and kissed him _again_ , as if that first press of their mouths together had been an experiment he'd found intriguing, worthy of repetition, but not altogether satisfactory, though Larry himself had enjoyed it thoroughly, and had felt suddenly taller, and almost laughed at the idea, but it had been entirely unexpected that Charles should, after all this time, want him in this way.

11\. His jacket was flung in the corner, his pants finding residence on a nearby table, and he had no idea at all what had become of most of Charles' wardrobe. His head was spinning, probably from a lack of oxygen, as Charles, once he'd _begun_ kissing, couldn't seem to _stop._ Not that Larry was at all complaining. Things progressed rapidly from there, a blur of bodies and heat and friction and then they were both coming, not simultaneously, of course, but one event triggering the next, inevitable and easy, and later, lying beside Charles, he would ask Charles, "What exactly happened here?" and Charles would only stare at him and then laugh as if that was entirely the wrong question to ask. "The question is, what happens _next_?" But Larry couldn't claim to know the answer to that, preferring instead to ponder the beginnings of things. The middles and endings did, he was pretty sure, usually take care of themselves.


End file.
